Nielsen- String Quartets, Vol. 2

Product Description Here is the second volume of The Young Danish String Quartet's highly acclaimed miniseries of Carl Nielsen's string quartets. The first volume in The Young Danish String Quartet's mini-series of Carl Nielsen's quartets was selected as Editor's Choice in Gramophone last summer, and a number of prestigious magazines and newspapers from all over the world agreed: This interpretation of Nielsen's string quartets sheds brilliant new light on Denmark's national composer. Review As with Volume 1 in this series, these are excellent performances. The works themselves are early, but Nielsen's energy and formal confidence are strikingly refreshing, even if the melodic style isn't as distinctive as it would become later. The first movement of the F minor quartet does feature some remarkable chromatic harmony, though, while the E-flat major quartet of 1898 reveals the composer of the First Symphony well on his way to the Second. It's a splendid work that deserves to be much better known. The Young Danish Quartet, as the name suggests, brings a youthful enthusiasm to the music that's very compelling. Occasionally, in the outer movements of both works, they bear down a bit too hard on their instruments resulting in some percussive sound effects, but this isn't a major problem--and better more excitement rather than less. Certainly they sustain the slow movements with impressive intensity, and they find perfect tempos for the E-flat quartet's Allegretto Pastorale third movement (with its Presto trio). Vivid sonics in both SACD and normal stereo add to the impact of the performances. Strongly recommended! -- ClassicsToday.com, David Hurwitz, December 2008If your shelf can hold only one disc of Nielsen's F minor and E flat major quartets, this disc will securely fill the spot. -- AllMusic.com, James Leonard, 2008LAST year the Young Danish String Quartet, founded in 2001 by four students in Copenhagen, released the first volume of a survey of the four published string quartets and the string quintet by Carl Nielsen. The dynamic performances made a strong case for seldom-heard works by Denmark's best-known composer. Volume 2 has just been issued, and the impassioned, insightful performances again shed light on fascinating repertory. Nielsen, who died in 1931 at 66, is usually associated with early-20th-century nationalist composers. Yet, a self-descri